I02 THE CONNECTICUT POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



The man who planted that orchard on my father's farm T 

 know was a Connecticut Yankee. He planted it good and 

 plenty. He planted it not only to supply six barrels of 

 apples for each member of the family, but also to supply five 

 or six barrels of cider. After we gathered our apples for 

 the winter supply, it was understood we were to load up half 

 a dozen wagons of apples to take to the cider mill, and after 

 that cider came home, several barrels were "doctored" with 

 raisins in order to preserve it for winter use. I didn't hap- 

 pen to get interested in fruit growing. Aly father was a 

 pioneer dairyman. The University of Wisconsin this com- 

 ing year is going to offer a prize to, and confer honors upon, 

 those who have become proficient in agriculture. We have 

 been conferring honors upon such men as J. Pierpont ^Morgan 

 and Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller and Roose- 

 velt and Taft, men who have been successful in finance and 

 business, in law, and in politics and in statesmanship. Why 

 not confer honors u])on men who have made a success in agri- 

 cultural lines ? 



I suppose every man acquires more or less of a profes- 

 sional education, whether he goes to college or not. Take 

 a man like Brother Hale, for example, he ought to have 

 more religion than the man who preaches to him. Xo doubt 

 he has been to church twice a Sunday for the last thirty 

 years and has probably listened to a hundred sermons a year 

 — in thirty years, that would be 3.000 sermons. Just the 

 same, in a certain wa}-, the man who is engaged in agricul- 

 ture in a State like Connecticut, where we have flourishing 

 societies like the dairymen, pomologists, poultry, and like 

 organizations, where institutes are being held, — it is hardly 

 possible for a farmer who is enthusiastic about this business 

 not to absorb a certain amount of scientific knowledge and 

 to get a professional education in his line of work. I don't 

 believe there is much difference between a conservative pro- 

 fessor at 50 and an aggressive farmer at 50. I don't believe 

 if }ou would take Professor Gulley and Brother Hale and 

 shake them up in a 1)ag and show them to a community. 



